Action Jackson said:
I hate to be in the position of defending politicians, but given this information, I don’t think your original characterization was fair. Only 16 actually answered you (did you personally talk to the 15 who were wrong? or did you talk to a staffer?), and the rest probably wrote you off as a crank. That doesn’t mean they didn’t know the answer, just that it wasn’t worth their time to get back to you.
My modest proposal for election & tax reform:
Each time you show up at the polls to vote (or not to vote, but just to log in that you came by), you get issued a lottery ticket. The tickets are numbered at random, quik-pick style, and winners are entitled to an equal share of the jackpot, which will amount to being $.10 for each voter. For combined national, state, and local elections, you’d get a number for each level of government. Lucky be the voter who ‘hits’ the national jackpot and gets around $15 megabucks just for going to the polls. And a cheap price to pay to inspire greater participation.
Now – about that tax return – amend the process legally so that the last page of any return form contains just the line for your signature, and a two- or three-column list of various appropriations that Congress has come up with for the budget. You mark off, say, ten boxes, numbering each by personal priority. When the forms are all turned in, the numbers are compiled and reported publicly. Then the public has a benchmark to use in judging the responsiveness of Congress to the public will; alternately, it gives spineless politicians an excuse to wimp-out and just vote whatever the taxpayers indicate they want.
The problem, DIF, is as others have brought up already – do we really want uninformed voters going to the booths? Do we want some moron who doesn’t really know the candidates or the issues, going just so he can have a chance at the lottery? I don’t think so. In the perfect world, I’d rather everybody be familiar with the issues, candidates, etc. and they vote. But since we don’t have that world, I’d rather the ignorant ones just stay home on election day (unless, of course, they’re gonna vote for the candidates I like 
).
Let’s be precise when we talk about ‘fundamental rights.’ Voting is NOT a ‘fundamental right’ as most people think of it, i.e. an inalienable right. It is alienated in a number of ways, most notably by excluding large portions of the population from exercise of their franchise (e.g. limitations based on age).
Big Iron is talking about constitutional scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. By labling voting as a ‘fundamental right,’ the Court has elevated the level of scrutiny it will observe in determining if a law restricting a person’s ability to vote is constitutional. However, while an elevated scrutiny applies, it appears that scrutiny only means that the Court will independently review the restriction to see if it relates to an important or compelling state interest.
Under this approach, the Court has upheld laws that: 1) restrict the ballot to ‘interested voters’ (where a special interest is at stake in the election), 2) Allowed literacy tests for voting (subsequently made unlawful by the Voting Rights Act of 1965), 3) Allowed a state to prevent voting by inmates who couldn’t leave their incarceration facility, 4) upheld residency requirements of as long as 50 days, and 5) upheld the limitation of ability to vote in party primaries to those who are registered members of the party. In each of these cases, the ‘right’ to vote has been restricted successfully by the states.
The OP posited the idea of restricting franchise to those who demonstrate knowledge of the Consitution. Under the literacy test requirement decisions, likely such a limitation would be found to be constitutional, unless the Court decided that it had the practical effect of dis-enfranchising blacks and other racial minorities.
Action Jackson wrote:
Weeeelllll … she wasn’t completely out of her gourd. Article 1, section 7, clause 1 of the U.S. constitution states:
<BLOCKQUOTE>“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”</BLOCKQUOTE>
This means ol’ Barbara Boxer could’ve introduced the gun-and-ammo tax as an amendment to, say, the Federal Budget.
Then again, I believe there must be some Federal court cases out there which state that excessively high taxation counts as a form of regulation, which would require such a law to fall under Congress’s Interstate Commerce power in order to be Constitutional.
I’m not flying fast, just orbiting low.
???
Care to elaborate as to what you are trying to say here?
The Federal Government has the power, under the interstate commerce clause, to “regulate commerce among the several states.” It can do so by passing laws that affect interstate commerce. There are practically no limits to what it can do in that regard.
Taxation is a power granted to the Federal Government through various clauses in the Constitution. Most notably, in Article I, Section 8, there is a clause reading: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises…” Presumably any attempt to tax guns would fall under this power.
Now what would taxation and the interstate commerce clause have to do with all this?